ASD Essential 8 Strategies

The Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) has released the Essential 8 – which are considered by ASD as the most effective strategies to mitigate targeted cybersecurity intrusions.

The ASD Essential 8 strategies build on previous ASD guidance on cybersecurity and incorporate the Top 4 Mandatory Requirements. ASD considers the Essential 8 to be an important part of an organisation’s security baseline.

Overview

The Essential 8 outlines the most important features and controls you need to protect your organisation:

Essential 8

Application Whitelisting

Top 4

Mitigation strategies to prevent malware delivery and execution

Patching Applications

Top 4

Hardening Microsoft Office Macros settings

User Application Hardening

Restricting Administrative Privileges

Top 4

Mitigation strategies to limit the extent of cyber security incidents

Patching Operating Systems

Top 4

Multi-Factor Authentication

Daily Backups

Mitigation strategies to recover data and system availability

For more information on the Essential 8, you can read our summary on our blog.

How Shearwater can help:

It is important to understand and plan for any impact or changes your business will experience as a result of introducing the Essential 8. Similarly, your business will need to ensure that any changes to your ICT environment take into consideration the Essential 8’s role in protecting your assets.

Shearwater can assist with developing your Essential 8 strategy and technical implementation. Shearwater can also help you to understand the maturity of your Essential 8 implementation by completing a technical review, reporting against ASD’s Essential 8 Maturity Model.

What you’ll get:

Visibility of your current Essential 8 security posture and where the gaps are